The acknowledgment came during an evidence session with British MPs, who flew to the United States to grill representatives from major technology firms. At the cost of several thousand pounds, the 11 lawmakers traveled to the country to question representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter as part of their fake news inquiry. Both Facebook and Twitter flew UK staff members to the US to give answers to the UK politicians.

Advertisement

Twitter provided an update on the activity it had seen from accounts related to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a propaganda group with links to the Kremlin. UK policy manager Nick Pickles – flown to the US from the UK – said it had found 49 new IRA accounts that posted 942 tweets around Brexit. These were retweeted 461 times and had 637 likes. Twitter didn't provide any data on how many people had seen these tweets or what they contained.

Read next

Here are the MPs that Russian trolls targeted the most

ByGian Volpicelli

In an oft-heated grilling, Facebook's UK policy manager Simon Milner confirmed that the company's second investigation into Russian Brexit influence would be completed by the end of February. Milner also suggested that the social network had only been investigating fake news around Brexit when information was provided to it by third parties.

"What we haven't had is information that has allowed us to target on a particular page or phenomenon," Milner said of Facebook's investigation into Russian influence around Brexit. "I'm not suggesting there is nothing," he continued, saying that in the US "intelligence" had been provided by third parties that helped Facebook identify postings from the IRA. Damian Collins, who is leading the inquiry from parliament, scolded Facebook saying: "You haven't looked, you haven't looked".

Advertisement

Here's what else we learned – and more importantly didn't learn – from the questioning of the three companies.

Facebook

Who represented the company?: Monika Bickert, head of global policy management; Simon Milner, policy director, UK, Middle East and Africa.

What we found out: Facebook was questioned for the longest amount of time. Questions ranged from the spread of child abuse images to whether Facebook was a surveillance platform.

Read next

Iran has its own fake news farms, but they're complete amateurs

ByDaphne Leprince-Ringuet

As well as setting a due date for Facebook's Brexit investigation, we also learned that Facebook advertising teams advised both the Remain and Leave campaigns in the Brexit referendum. "Our advertising is a self-serving model," Bickert said. She said that the sources of adverts get automatically checked before they are purchased and then they may also be checked afterward. To help Facebook users determine whether a link they're clicking on is from a trusted source, Bickert says the company is planning on using brand logos on future posts.

Advertisement

Milner also said Facebook's advertising system will look very different come the next general election in the UK – currently planned for 2020. "You will be able to see every ad that is being run by the major Facebook pages and all the ads by individual campaigners," he said.

Ian Lucas MP called for more transparency from Facebook. "You have all the information," he said. "You won't show it to us."

What we didn't find out: The amount of Russian IRA posts and accounts on Facebook.

Google and YouTube

Who represented the company?: Richard Gingras, vice president of news, Google; Juniper Downs, global head of public policy, YouTube.

Read next

Twitter has purged left-wing accounts with no explanation

BySanjana Varghese

What we found out: A lot of the questioning of Google focussed on its algorithms and how they work. The company said there was an "honest results policy" that's designed to stop staff intentionally adding bias into its systems. It also admitted its YouTube "view next" recommendations need to be improved.

YouTube said it would be willing to cooperate with parliament and investigate Russian activity around Brexit and whether IRA accounts were specifically active around the vote. Previously, YouTube admitted it hadn't been looking at these.

News videos are less than two per cent of YouTube's viewership. But Downs said YouTube is increasingly relying on its algorithms and machine learning systems to flag content that is against its policies. She said 98 per cent of violent extremism is flagged by automated systems.

What we didn't find out: How much Google and YouTube invest in preventing spam and misinformation on their platforms. YouTube head of public policy Juniper Downs only said it was "tens of millions" of dollars.

Twitter

Who represented the company?: Carlos Monje, director, public policy and philanthropy, US and Canada; Nick Pickles, head of public policy and philanthropy, UK.

What we found out: MPs spent a large amount of time questioning Twitter about whether it would delete lies from its platform. There were also questions about bots and whether there should be a rating system for Twitter users.

Advertisement

The big thing we learned was that Twitter's investigation into IRA and Brexit is progressing. Pickles revealed that 49 Russian IRA Twitter accounts posted 942 tweets about the Brexit vote. One of these posts was retweeted 461 times. The posts were liked a total of 637 times.

Twitter, like YouTube, also said that a large amount of its flagging of inappropriate content was done by algorithms.

What we didn't find out: How many people viewed the IRA content that were posted around the Brexit vote.